On Vladimir Putin, Wikipedia refers to "unconfirmed claims" that he has a personal fortune of $70 billion. Wikipedia then continues with "Nina L. Khrushcheva of the The New School estimates his net worth to be between $40–70 billion". Aha! A professor, no less, actually "estimates" something. That must have some credibility. What a crushing disappointment to find that NK merely repeats hostile accusations. In the absence of any evidence, is it any wonder that Mr Putin expresses himself so forcefully as to refer to such statements as something that people pick from their noses and smear on the paper? Sorry, but this article contains no education, learning or science, it is not worthy of a professor.

Putin inherited the problems of Russia? That would suggest that the former owner of Russia died and he had no choice in his sudden ownership of the many problems. Really? Nor is his resolution any better than the former owners treatment of those issues. Accusations of "rape" may be used in the hope of lending some air of justice and fairness to the idea of Putin as a law and order leader. But isn't that just another attempt to shift the argument by mis-using another loaded word? So Putin has only been imprisoning rapists? Clearly not. The Pussy Riot girls seem then more victims than criminals. Perhaps Russia has been through a terrible war (although of course that is only a metaphor...), but if so, it was a war with a terrible faceless foe, the Communist Party, Putins former employer, so clearly Putin was on the other side in that battle. Putin is really nothing more than a fascist dictator, with no real objective than his personal wealth and aggrandizement. As a sort of "typical" businessman, he wants wealth, of course, but he also wants to be loved and appreciated as the Great Man he sees himself to be. In any event, posts apologizing for Putin have about as much credibility as anti-Obama posts, funded and paid for by the Kochs. It reaches the point of comedy. Neo-liberals for Capitalism? It just gets better each time.

Apologists for Putin? Who would have thought it possible? About the only excuse for Putin is that someone has to run the country and the place is a disorganized mess, never really properly formed as a "country." Russia, is more of a place of birth, a state of mind, rather than a well run nation-state. Like Peron, Putin in Russia can bribe the poor and middle class to stay silent and concede to his rule, while really doing nothing, and punish those who are foolish enough to make some noise. It is an excellent analogy, whether you think Ms Khrrushcheva is a wonderful writer or analyst or not. Indeed, that sort of ad hominem attacks on her make me wonder about the actual posters: it sounds exactly like something Putin himself would write as a response. From that aspect of course, it is significant and amusing. Putin is reprehensible, which is of course the perfect term.

There are plenty of things that Putin can be criticized for, but it must be acknowledged that Putin inherited a horrific situation in Russia that was brought about by the West's economic raping of the country in the guise of "neoliberal reform." I do not use that term lightly. In respect to life expectancy and declining standards of living, Russia had been through the equivalent of a terrible war. So when a writer obscures these facts, I am left to conclude that he or she is simply a neoliberal propagandist and that that is why they are given such a platform. If you want to fault Putin for something, fault him for private fortune, sure, but also for not hanging the oligarchs and returning Russia's patrimony to the people...

This is a tendentious, reprehensible piece. Putin was dealing with a nation that was collapsing after suffering a catastrophic attack from Western high finance. The oligarchs - gangsters and kleptocrats though they are - were actually stalking horses for the Western Overclass. They looted Russia of everything worth owning. Now Putin establishes some modest system to issue credit and transfer payments to the Russian people and this vapid, venal woman calls them bribes and hand outs, as if the Russian people had not had their patrimony stolen from them by gangsters and (even worse) financiers! It is amazing how weak a person can be as a scholar and an analyst and still find work in Western academia by producing Establishment propaganda with an academic veneer.

Evita and Putin share the same trait of vainness. While Evita was facile, Putin is a man of his word.
Contemporary critics were unimpressed by Argentina's first lady , a former actress, an excellent one, who had a penchant for self-preoccupation. The same applies for Putin. Many in the West aren't amused by his unfeigned paternalism, which was fully displayed in his op-ed in the New York Times last September.
Peronists have been running Argentina since Juan Peron died four decades ago. Would Putin's policies endure that they would become a political movement for posterity, like Argentina's Peronism, an ideology, based on social justice, economic independence, and political sovereignty? Menem and the Kirchners are said to be zealous Peronists. The question is whether Putin would leave behind a legacy that his successors really want to carry on.

As an argentine the analogy has occured to me too. Putin, like Perón, has a shrewd understanding of his constituency and he sustains values like nationalism and the Orthodox religion that are dear to the Russians.
Perón was a fascist populist but he was not crazy. He did not declare dumb wars, he did not destroy the fabric of argentine society and he did not even disown the rich that Evita so eloquently blamed for the hardships of the poor.
Putin, like Perón, cannot be compared with Stalin, Beria, Mao, Hitler or Mussolini. Perón persuaded and cajoled his opponents into submission by corruption more than he did by force. Putin and Perón stand in some middle ground between fanatical authority and a republican state.

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